About a dozen local NGOs and activists formed the “Łódź for All” coalition to organize what they called a “peaceful stroll” along the city’s main Piotrkowska Street, near where the far-right Confederation party held a “Stop Immigration!” protest on Saturday.
“Our walk voices opposition to racist, anti‑refugee marches,” said organizer Eliza Gaust. “Anyone who wants to live in Łódź is welcome here.”
City Mayor Hanna Zdanowska, her deputies and several councilors joined the crowd but did not lead it or speak.
The rally also won backing from the University of Łódź, which hosts around 2,750 foreign students from 95 countries.
“This multiculturalism is our great strength,” rector Rafał Matera told participants.
Tour guide Justyna Tomaszewska said she had to steer visiting professors from Turkey, Mexico and Egypt off Piotrkowska Street for safety reasons during Saturday’s nationalist demonstration.
She added that vandals later defaced a mural honoring Holocaust survivor Halina Elczewska with the slogan “This is Poland.”
Marchers carried banners quoting another Holocaust survivor, the late historian Marian Turski: “Do not be indifferent, or some form of Auschwitz will fall upon you."
Turski, who died in Warsaw in February at the age of 98, spent much of his life warning the world about the dangers of indifference to racial and ethnic injustice.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP